Pumpkinheads

Pumpkinheads is an eagerly anticipated collaboration between critically recognized American YA novelist Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl, Eleanor and Park, Wayward Son) and popular Canadian Eisner-Award winning graphic novel illustrator Faith Erin Hicks (Friends With Boys, The Adventures of Super Hero Girl, “Nameless City Trilogy”). The result? A heartwarming graphic novel, one full of plenty of twists and turns - some through a corn maze and some through the emotional angst of saying goodbye to a familiar and comfortable part of your life to face the new possibilities ahead. The story features two teenaged employees serving their last shift at the ultimate Pumpkin Patch. Both the text and illustrations combine perfectly to portray the bittersweet turning point when high school is over, summer jobs are ending, goodbyes to friends must be said, and last options explored to prevent any potential lingering regrets.

Josiah Templeton (aka Josie) is not taking his last day of work well at all. For years, he’s cornered the market as MVPPP (Most Valuable Pumpkin Patch Person), proudly displaying four stars on his name tag as proof. Josie is totally downhearted by his last shift at the Pumpkin Patch. He may have a lot of confidence in his role as a cook at the Succotash Hut, but his final shift exposes his regrets about the things he’s never experienced at the Patch, including following through on his unrequited love interest in Marcy, the cute Fudge Girl who he’s never had the gumption to talk to in the past three years.

Deja is a completely opposite foil – she’s full of personality, funky hair, and sass. Deja’s totally carpe diem in her outlook on life and towards her last shift. She’s already dated half the Pumpkin Patch and draws on her experience to call out Josie as “a timid little bunny rabbit who has spent three years hiding down in the Succotash Hut from any hope of romance”. She’s determined to turn this last evening into one grand adventure for both of them to remember forever, saying: “I’m your friend. And friends don’t let friends live small lives.”

Deja convinces Josie to participate in a scheme to swap shifts from their usual gig to work at the Pie Palace – conveniently located right across from the Fudge Shoppe. But Deja’s attempts at playing Cupid don’t go smoothly as tongue-tied Josiah proves a hopeless case and Marcy has been reassigned to the S’mores Pit. Operation: Fudge Girl develops into a rollicking race through the various pumpkin patch attractions as the two teens attempt to locate the elusive Marcy. Meanwhile, Deja compounds events by adding in her own side mission to try as many of her favourite Pumpkin Patch snacks as possible from Frito pie to Pumpkin Bombs.

The chaos ramps up yet another notch as Deja’s caramel apple is stolen by a kid, she’s almost run over by the Pumpkin Patch train, and, at the S’mores Pit, they discover that Marcy has been reassigned yet again. An escaped Buck the goat is thrown into the mix as a reoccurring motif across four large comic panels and contributes to the bedlam as he terrorizes patrons and thwarts all staff attempts at capture. Deja’s vengeance against the little terror who stole her caramel apple is nicely contrasted by a series of slower-paced panels in which the two teens comfort and rescue a lost kid.

Hicks has filled the comic panels with sight gags and crazy punny signs (Girls Just Wanna Have Fudge) which serve to entertain the reader and add to the humour factor. The colour palette is absolutely perfect as it is limited mostly to secondary shades of blue and orange – echoing the blue jean overalls, orange pumpkins and the twilight feel of the last shift. You can practically smell autumn and the crispness in the air. The characters are drawn so expressively that sometimes speech bubbles aren’t required to communicate their thoughts. Rowell has also supplied crazy titles for each of the seventeen chapters, titles such as “S’More Problems” and “Maized and Confused”.

Although somewhat buried in the action, the ensuing dialogue and events hint to the reader that the two friends could possibly be developing into an item. Then it’s back to more hilarious scenes with the goat chasing Josie as he cuts through the pumpkin field and leaps on a wagon to finally introduce himself to Marcy. However, during this meeting, Josie discovers that Marcy clearly hates the whole pumpkin patch scene as she disses the scarecrows, corny signs, and overalls as cold, dirty, lame, and tacky and dashes any potential romantic intentions by complaining about the smell of fudge and pumpkins.

Josie realizes that all his favourite things he holds in common with Deja and confesses how much he is going to miss their friendship. In turn, Deja reveals that she once really liked Josie but got tired of waiting for him to reciprocate these feelings. The last hours at the Pumpkin Patch culminate with the teens’ friendship easing through an awkward stage into blossoming romance – a very satisfying ending.

The book’s inside jacket flaps contain illustrated maps of the Pumpkin Patch, and the end pages feature a conversation between the author and illustrator which offers further insights into the book’s development. Hicks divulges that she was quite relieved that there weren’t too many animals in the storyline as she feels drawing animals isn’t her strength. She was able to develop her own paneling and developed several preliminary sketches before settling on how the characters would look. Rowell confessed that she “had been hoarding this pumpkin patch setting for a few years” and that she invited Hicks to come to Omaha to visit her very favourite pumpkin patch for inspiration but was thrilled to have her visit develop beyond this into the portrayal of “the Disneyland of pumpkin patches.” She also really trusted Hicks when it came to extending her characters and knew that she would be able to “bring so much chemistry to Deja and Josiah’s relationship.”

A big hats-off to this graphic novel for the way it normalizes the storyline. Deja is a tall black girl, she has hips, and it is implied that she is also bisexual as she encounters both female and male exes during the Pumpkin Patch adventure. However, these are all non-issues – an approach which enhances the importance of having such inclusive books readily available in our library collections for all students to read and enjoy. Pumpkinheads is a graphic novel that should be considered a definite must-have for all middle and secondary school libraries.